More than 40 YA authors met fans
and signed books at a packed event
at Books of Wonder last Sunday.

The multicolored sign outside of Books of Wonder called the event I was about to walk into “The Biggest Teen Author Signing Ever!” As I stepped into the Manhattan children’s bookstore last Sunday afternoon, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The sign, however, wasn’t lying. What I walked into certainly appeared to be the biggest teen author signing ever. Period. Exclamation!

Once through the constantly revolving bookstore door, my boyfriend Jeremy, who had come along for moral support, and I were immediately separated by two giggling tween girls clutching Gossip Girl books in one hand and cell phones in the other. As they blew through us and hurried down one of the aisles, I turned around quickly and grabbed Jeremy’s coat.

“I’m a little overwhelmed,” I said.

“Uh, yeah. Me too.”

The sheer number of bodies—teenagers, parents, grandparents, authors, employees, etc.—packed into the store was immense. I wasn’t quite sure where to begin, or how to even get beyond the front of the store. I reached into my purse and handed Jeremy my camera.

“Try to get some pictures of the kids in line, I guess.”

“Sure,” he said, and started to walk away. It occurred to me then that he and I might be the only people who didn’t exactly look like we belonged here.

“And, I guess, try not to look too creepy while you do that.”

He grinned, and seconds later was engulfed by a sea of short people with braces. I was on my own.

Not yet having made it more than five steps into the store, I had no choice but to push my way into the crowd. Two steps later, and I found I had pushed myself directly into Peter Glassman, the owner of Books of Wonder.

“Hi,” I said, still slightly off balance. “I’m writing an article, and I’m a little overwhelmed.”

He laughed. “Well, this is the first time any of us are doing this, and it’s very overwhelming!”

He then told me that the idea for the event had been brought to him by author David Levithan, who had also selected the authors in attendance. Glassman’s only request, he told me, was that the words “young adult” in the name of the event be changed to “teen.”

“I don’t know any teenager who likes being called a young adult,” he said. As the crowd began to close in around us, I asked him about the turnout, because at that moment, it was really the only thing I could focus on.

“We knew it would be decent, but this is fantastic. The word-of-mouth really spread.”

After several false starts down jam-packed aisles, I finally reached the rear of the store, or Teen Mecca, as it must have appeared to the young people in attendance. In horseshoe formation, seated behind tables draped in red and green cloth, were the authors, Sharpies in hand, signing their books for the teeming teen masses. I scanned the crowd, searching for someone with a moment to talk to me. My eyes landed on Daniel Ehrenhaft, and I made a beeline toward him before anyone could get in my way.

“Hi,” I said, slightly out of breath. “I’m writing an article, and I’m a little overwhelmed.”

“We all are,” he said, smiling. “Sitting helps.”

Whew. It sounded like I had found a kindred spirit. As it turned out, this was the biggest book signing event that Ehrenhaft had been to himself, with the nearest in size being composed of 10 authors, as opposed to this event’s staggering 40 young adult writers. Right as I began to catch my breath, someone slightly taller but definitely younger than me stepped up to the table with an open book to be signed, and I was cast out into the crowd. Just then, Jeremy came up behind me.

“Hi!” I said, grateful for a familiar face.

“I feel uncomfortable taking pictures here. I feel like parents are looking at me.”

“It’s a book signing. They expect people to take pictures.”

“Maybe of the authors. Not of the 12-year-old girls in line.”

I took my camera back and frowned.

“Maybe if the camera wasn’t so scratched up, we’d look more professional…”

“I’m going to the café.”

And with that, he was gone again. I took a deep breath and turned back around toward the authors. I quickly spotted another momentarily unoccupied spot in front of author Judy Blundell. Within seconds, I stood before her, spot claimed, smiling awkwardly.

“Hi, I’m writing an article, and I’m a little overwhelmed.”

She smiled at me.

“Yeah, it’s like Lollapalooza in here!”

Relieved that yet another person seemed to share my amazement, I knelt down at the end of the table where she sat, and asked her about her impression of the turnout.

“It’s great,” she said, and then leaned in closer to me. “And it’s great that they seem to have actually read the books.”

As I opened my mouth to ask another question, the space I had abandoned in front of her table was filled by two teen girls. Maybe the same ones who had spun me around as I walked in the front door, but probably not. By then, the teen faces were beginning to blur. As I moved out of the signing area, I nearly bumped into a girl in line with a small stack of books waiting to be signed.

“Hi,” I said. “Are you as overwhelmed as I am?”

“Yeah, this is crazy!” she said. I found out her name was Jessica, and she was waiting in line to reach David Levithan. As we chatted about another author event she had been to earlier in the week, one of her friends, also named Jessica, came over and exclaimed that she had just met author Megan McCafferty. She told McCafferty that reading her books had inspired her to write her own book someday. I smiled, and stood with the two Jessicas for a moment, catching my breath. Suddenly, the store seemed a little less chaotic. The line started to move forward, and the Jessicas were gone.

I began moving toward the front of the store, in search of my latte-sipping boyfriend. When I found him, he was not at a café table as I had expected, but standing in one of the aisles reading the back cover of a Matt de la Pena book, Ball Don’t Lie.

“This looks pretty cool,” he said. “Not what I expected at all.”

I smiled. “Yeah, this whole thing is pretty cool.”

He continued reading the Matt de la Pena blurbs, and I picked up Judy Blundell’s What I Saw and How I Lied. The path to the front door had cleared slightly, and outside, the adult world beckoned. But instead, two twenty-somethings decided to hang around the biggest teen author signing ever (!) for just a little bit longer.

Sara and her boyfriend took a number of photos at the Books of Wonder event. Click here for our photo gallery.